WikiLeaks Turncoat Will Not Remove His WikiLeaks Tattoo

February 18, 2011

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, author of Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website and owner of the cat Julian Assange liked to physically fight, is in the hot seat for the New York Times Magazine‘s Questions For column this weekend, online now for clamoring WikiLeaks completists. In the interview, Domscheit-Berg backs up his written threats that he would probably attack his ex-boss if he ever sees him again, for the threats Assange made against him and for digging up dirt on Domscheit-Berg’s girlfriend. But he will never get rid of his WikiLeaks tattoo.

Domscheit-Berg says he was “trapped in the illusion of thinking that [Assange] is such a great guy,” constantly working to prove to the accused egomaniac that it could “work out” between them. “I guess that’s what defines an abusive relationship,” Domscheit-Berg admits in Sunday’s interview.

But along with a more weighty, if abbreviated, discussion of WikiLeaks’ impact, including its importance to revolution in the Middle East, which should be read in full, Domscheit-Berg stands by his body art:

You have a tattoo on your back of half of the WikiLeaks hourglass logo. Are you considering having it removed by laser any time soon?
No, I will never have that removed at all, absolutely not.

Why not?
Why would I? It’s still part of my life and was the most remarkable period in my life so far.

Before Roe, terminating a pregnancy meant confronting a nightmare of quacks and butchers, knitting needles and wire coat hangers. The exceptions were people like Dr. X, “the stars of the underground abortion circuit.”